Time to repeat my topical story.

I worked for a startup that prided itself on being "data driven". They'd talk about how other startups were doing stupid things because they followed their feelings instead of data.

One day in one of those all hands meetings, the CEO was taking questions. Someone said, "Studies are showing that four day work weeks are more effective on like every metric. Can we look into that?"

The CEO said "No, we're not doing that ". Didn't read the linked studies. Didn't entertain it at all. His mind was made up, and the data was irrelevant.

Because he doesn't really care about data. He cares about feeling smart and irreverent. He cares about being seen as a cool disruptive startup guy who's going to grind his way to success.

The dishonesty makes me want to puke.

But you know what also makes me sick? All the sycophantic boot lickers that would gather round and tell him his every idea was great. The people who would work unpaid long hours to "get shit done". Bunch of fucking wormtongues who would sell out their coworkers for crumbs.

Maybe he was a real person once who really did care about data. But by the time I met him, he was an empty suit

They know this. A schismed individual is a compliant employee.

I've been studying managers for much longer, and I've reached a very clear conclusion: they don't care.

Does anyone have a link to the actual study? The article doesn't seem to have it.

Sleep. Precious beautiful sleep. I can roll out of bed, rip a huge wet fart, log into Teams, pretend to care for 5 minutes, go right back to sleep (and still be able to smell that fart, thankfully), take a long nap, get up to take a big smooth dump, then put in the same 3 hours of actual work I'd do at the office, then play Sokoban all afternoon. All the while reducing resource usage.

This is the UBI/leisure society I was promised as a kid.

If you spend most of your day getting to and from work, then pretending to be busy at the office, you don't have time to think or be a threat to the billionaires by starting your own competing company/product.

I find it really weird that companies would want to pay the enormous cost of maintaining huge buildings full of people, that don't actually need to be there, in person. That just seems like a huge waste of money.

Of course. Saving an hour of meaningless commute every day is a huge positive change.

Advancing tech was sold as a way to make all our lives better. Here is an instance of tech making our lives better, but instead companies dismiss it because the real purpose of tech for the capital class is control.

You mean we had a worldwide event that proved to us that an incredible technology that allows us to work remotely could actually be used to work remotely, then our overlords chose to ignore that and now studies are proving what we already knew was true, is true?

Neat.

It is 0850. I start at 0900. I am still in bed.

Working from home is great.

Could’ve just asked.

I love the way any article which says remote work is good still has to use the word, "surprisingly" as often as possible. Nobody is surprised.

It largely depends on if you can afford to have a room dedicated as your home office.

Working/relaxing cannot happen in the same space. Our brains are not wired to do such a dramatic difference in mental activity in the same location. That's also why bedrooms should be used for sleeping and fucking ONLY. Once you start reading/scrolling in bed, your brain makes that connection, "Oh, I'm in bed, I should doomscroll for the next 3 hours" instead of "Oh, I'm in bed. I should sleep."

Did the web site swap in a completely unrelated story about how swimming is good exercise for people over 55?

Aaaaand See how people will deny scientific research for the sake of Control.

I'm fed Up on how much a workplace wants to Control anyones Life. And all the rights that have ever been fought for under a broad Attack every single day. And it kinda feels like we're losing the battle.

Unionize!

CEOs: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Working from home also proved that the "middle-manager" was at best, a part-time job, maybe not necessary at all.

Which is why the ruling class has decided we can't have it...

This has been correct for all of human history. I’m not sure why anyone would have assumed the invention of the cubicle would have changed this.

Every time this comes up i tell my personal and data driven experience as a middle manager in a company, and every time people trash me, but i keep saying it.

IT FUCKING DEPENDS!

From purely data point of view (note: this is from my place of work) workers whose work is purely executing more or less the same duties every day had their productivity have a nose dive when working long stretches from home. Also their works quality got worse. Its easy to reinforce bad habits whitout even noticing it, if the feedback comes from email and and not straight from the supervisor.

BUT with jobs like coders or artists where the job is more open ended instead of monotous labor there was no ill effects.

Then on the other side communication has gotten much slower with the people working from outside office. Where i used to just walk to the other room and ask something from my collegue i now need to message them in our internal and hope they notice it. Getting answers for questions have turned from 5 minute thing to 10-40 minute things.

Also from the point of more inventive things on my work we have lost a lot of changes to brainstorm ideas. No more throwing ideas around during lunch or coffee breaks

It’s the shareholders who own our government that make money off commercial real estate that want everyone back at work. Shareholders don’t give a fuck about your wellbeing. They’re literally looting our government, destroying any and all global safety nets and installing facism worldwide quite publicly.

All about balance. Working from home is such an improvement from past times. Face to face contact with your peers should not be underestimated though - very valuable.

Evidence shows performance holds or climbs when people choose flexible setups with solid support from managers and peers.

That's the part these chuckle-head RTO folks willfully ignore. In a virtual environment you have to lead differently, and since they're never the ones who are wrong it must be everyone else who is broken.

With the right leadership and support mechanisms virtual work absolutely can raise all boats. But that means you have to be willing to change. And open-mindedness is not typically an attribute selected for in corporate senior leaders.

AI article and website